4. Call bullshit on the notes themselves all you want, but attacking other commenters = not cool.

5. Ignoring bullies is the best way to make them go away. (Don’t feed the trolls!) If a particular person is an ongoing nuisance, I reserve the right to ban them from the site. (For clarification, see #1.)

Well, well, well…AZ wants to enforce immigration law, and that makes us racists.

But try to build a mosque/community center in Lower Manhattan, and find that you have your Constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion violated (by those who would consider themselves “patriots”) because of what some numb-nuts did nine years ago.
Here’s an idea, stop Puerto Ricans from building anything near Fraunces Tavern because of the January 24, 1975 bombing by the F.A.L.N. which killed four and injured more than fifty. Clearly an act of terrorism for which all Puerto Ricans should pay, right?
Come on, NY…you’re bigger than this!

It’s all starting to make sense to me now.
Yeah, right.

Interesting that we (the US and most of its citizens) pressure Islamic countries to not restrict the rights of Christians within their borders, but so many have no trouble restricting the legally protected rights of Muslims here at home.
We tell them that State-sponsored religion is wrong, yet we wholeheartedly support Israel, a self-proclaimed Jewish State which actively persecutes the religious minority within its borders.

Seems to me that the deaths of the victims of 9-11 were in vain if they cannot stand for the freedoms we hold so dear. The building of the Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan would strongly display to the world how committed we are to those freedoms.

One of my best friends is coming to kidnap me at 10. He says it is the only way to get me away from work and the kids. The sad thing is: He’s right. I have no idea where he’s taking me or what we’re doing. Because I like to be prepared, I’m going for bedhead and two coats of mascara – my default mode. Doc gave me flexeril for my neck and for the first time today it didn’t hurt quite as much. Yesterday I quit work early and spent some time napping… pretty sure that helped too.

Another Saturday morning and I ain’t got nobody
I got some money cause I just got paid
Oh how I wish I had someone to talk to
I’m in an awful way

Aug 21, 2010 at 7:50 am

Comment #9996

MAMARILLA2

Went out to the back 40. pretty sad out there.I brought some flowers and a bottle of wine for all the mourners…

It seems that we have aquired a new feline…small and grey/white. It is currently asleep on the couch next to me….It met me at the door when I came home from work and has been by my side since..I believe that this is supposed to be my 14 yr olds new baby…I think they forgot to tell the kitten.

Missing my ((((CIFs)))) smootchies.

Aug 20, 2010 at 12:50 am

Comment #9995

infant tyrone

Wo,
I have a couple of cervical nerve impingements in the C6 and C7 area.
The HMO I was with before we left the US gave me nortryptilene to cut down on pain signal transmissions. It works OK for me…maybe you too.
Another thing they mentioned but didn’t try (since the NT worked fairly well) is gabapentin. Might be 2 things to explore.

You can do your own research on these or talk to your health adviser/provider, but one of them definitely helped (didn’t cure) me.

Best of luck,
ty

P.S. Plus of course, there’s always Vicodin, Norco, and the stuff up the line from them…

I am here to do an old-style HQ emotional purge. I can’t stop crying. My neck is killing me. Apparently I have this muscle that is spasming and is frozen. The xrays they did two days ago show some cervical degeneration, but I can’t get anything out of my doctor’s office as to what can or should be done. It hurts ALL THE TIME. I don’t sleep. I’m icing it constantly. I am at the end of my rope. That is all.

Aug 19, 2010 at 2:53 pm

Comment #9991

H for Toy

Has anyone perfected the teleporter yet? I’m shufflin off to Buffalo. I’d rather teleport.

Aug 19, 2010 at 1:18 pm

Comment #9990

TheOldSchool

I came to Australia knowing that the country would have some surprises in store for me, but what Australia didn’t know was that I had some surprises in store for her, as well.

Last night, mouths were simultaneously agog and agape when I took to the small town dinner theatre stage decked out in duds reminiscent of Michael Flatley in his “Lord of the Dance” days, and treated the entire audience to 30 minutes of absolutely mind-blowing river dancing.

Poor Rose missed most of the show because she fell ill about 30 seconds into my performance and wound up walking back to the room. Hopefully someone captured it via some electronic medium. (My performance — NOT her trudging sullenly back to the youth hostel.)

I’m still jazzed! There was nothing in the paper this morning, but I expect there’ll be a big write-up “manana” (that’s Spanish for “tomorrow,” and although it seems like it should rhyme with banana, it doesn’t).

Don’t worry about Rose. She’s not ill. Like every woman I’ve ever gone out with, she just needs plenty of “alone time.”

That said, she has been gone for quite a while now. Oh well, I’ll “hang tight.”

“Keep on keepin’ on,” as Lord Flatley might liltingly say.

Show biz is such a rush! If you’ve got it in your blood, it doesn’t matter whether you’re on a Broadway stage or in a small Chinese restaurant in a rinky-dink mining town of 750 semi-literate/fully-inebriated souls in the boondocks of southern Western Australia! (Just a wide spot in the road that I too-quickly turned into a wet spot.)

Thanks, Glo…you know, I’m a hard working man…and I have this tin-plated star and all…
You know, this site should have a chat room section!
I’m pretty sure that was tongue-in-cheek when it was posted the other day on the MT, but if they can only watch this and not participate, fuck ‘em.

Ouch, Mark. Those comments were rough! Gein Bay? But for cripe’s sake, you’d think the Vikings would formulate some sort of back-up plan where the quarterback position is concerned.

The “try the veal” comment comes from an old joke, oi. Picture a stand-up comedian doing an act in front of a sparsely populated room of diners. He’s got a collection of groaners and tired jokes. He goes through his routine and gets hardly any reaction. At the end, he says, “Thanks, folks! I’m here all week! Try the veal, and don’t forget to tip your waitress.” It’s a cultural thing, I guess.

I don’t know if it’s so much as moved on, more as it’s been, prevented from visiting for me. But luckily I’m stuck here at work all week and so I’ll be your entertainment. Don’t forget to try the veal!

oh did not know about tragedy. (((((glo)))) condolences.
Love your comment.
I thought q as abandoned house whose occupant have moved big and better things. so was pleasantly surprised at finding 1 and half page of unread comments.
((((CIFSwhoarehere))))

Hey rose and TOS, sounds like your Australian adventure is going along well, shark-infested waters not withstanding.

CB, around here, the media go crazy when there’s a black bear sighting anywhere in the southern half of the state. Like they’re supposed to know that they have to stay Up North, and not come down to the “civilized” areas.

I don’t go into the backyards of bears either. I’m a city boy! Hahaha
In fact, that’s one of the reasons we developed cities, safety.

I feel the same way about campers who get killed by bears and mountain lions…but we still go after the animal as somehow being rouge.

Humans are not special. Predators will attack prey, and like it or not, humans are prey animals. We have no claws or fangs, no venom, nothing. We’re not even really very strong…we’re just unusually good at defending ourselves.

Glo, I had a dog once (Bear) who was a feisty sucker. Well, he got himself in a fight with another dog and lost.
Though his injuries were quite minor, he died a few days later.
The vet said that, sometimes, they just give up.

Always gets me when people blame the shark for eating what it finds in the ocean.

Reality check…that’s what sharks do.

Me, I’m a land animal and that’s where I stay.

Aug 17, 2010 at 8:46 am

Comment #9971

TheOldSchool

Sorry to hear about the losses suffered by both glo and aaa.

Rose and I were standing atop this stunning cliff last night watching surfers surfing GIGANTIC waves as the sun went down.

This morning we learned that one of them was eaten alive by a great white shark. He was a 31 year old father of three little girls. A miner on his holiday. Poor guy. (I’m referring to his life’s outcome, not his financial situation, although he may have been broke, too.)

I know some of you will expect me to go hunt the shark and kill it for this one bad thing it has done. To you, I say, “I think there’s been enough death down under and up over for one day. The shark probably though the surfer was a seal. They were spotted swimming in the area earlier that day.”

Aug 17, 2010 at 8:09 am

Comment #9970

park rose

Just read this page, ‘glo. Sorry to hear about Parker. She sounded like a sweet dog. Pass my condolences on to the motorcycle.

Onto cheerier matters, am in rainy Pemberton, with sunny TOS. All is good in the world (today, anyway).

Well, we didn’t have her autopsied, but the vet says it sounded like her heart gave out. About a month ago she broke her toe and has been in a splint. She wasn’t able to go on her walks and had been off her food a bit and depressed-seeming. It may be she had an underlying heart condition or she might have developed a bandage sore that got infected and that weakened her. What’s heart-breaking is that she was going to get her splint off this week and be able to go on walks again.

It isn’t everyday that one sees a dead kangaroo laying by the side of the road.

For instance, I saw one yesterday, but I haven’t seen any today.

(That said, it’s only 1:24 p.m. here. If I do see another one later today, I reserve the right to amend my opening sentence.)

Aug 16, 2010 at 1:27 am

Comment #9950

Wordtinker doesnt smith

Btw – shopping with ‘rilla’s youngest was tons of fun… though I don’t think she’ll ever want to do it again… her shy-girl persona got run out of town by my “ohmygawdit’sadorableandit’s80%off” shopaholic persona. Poor thing, I sent her to the dressing room with 25 pieces the first time through, and teenagers do NOT like to try on clothes before they buy them.

So, I’m sitting around on the couch in my jammies, nursing my cold and waiting for someone to make me breakfast when I stumble across a paid program for the M-tracker, a gps tracking and data storing device to put in your car. They’re selling it as a way to have an automatic log book for people who use their car for business, and that’s fine. It’s a little creepy, though, because this thing connects with Google Maps and shows exactly where the car has been and what speed it was driven and where it stopped and for how long. THEN they make a point of saying it’s small and discreet and can be hidden anywhere in the car. “Track your kids or your spouse!” Creepy.

Now, 40 wpm at 5 spaces per word (I think that’s what it was) is 200 keystrokes, but employers are looking for like 700 keystrokes per minute, or 140 words per minute.
That would be okay…if they were looking for typists, but it’s really not relevant otherwise.

I’m cleaning out The Motorcycle’s kitchen cupboards. We found some Kool-Aid whose envelope was written in cuneiform. Best we can figure after making it that it’s pineapple/something. Pretty tasty, and soothing on my scratchy throat.

Yes, the caller is correct and he’s also right that a lot of people haven’t heard about the change.

Two Spaces After a Period–The Old Way

Here’s the deal: Most typewriter fonts are what are called monospaced fonts. That means every character takes up the same amount of space. An “i” takes up as much space as an “m,” for example. When using a monospaced font, where everything is the same width, it makes sense to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence to create a visual break. For that reason, people who learned to type on a typewriter were taught to put two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence.

One Space After a Period–The New Way

But when you’re typing on a computer, most fonts are proportional fonts, which means that characters are different widths. An “i” is more narrow than an “m,” for example, and putting extra space between sentences doesn’t do anything to improve readability.

Although how many spaces you use is ultimately a style choice, using one space is by far the most widely accepted and logical style. The Chicago Manual of Style (1), the AP Stylebook (2), and the Modern Language Association (3) all recommend using one space after a period at the end of a sentence. Furthermore, page designers have written in begging me to encourage people to use one space because if you send them a document with two spaces after the periods, they have to go in and take all the extra spaces out.

I know it’s a hard habit to break if you were trained to use two spaces, but if you can, give one space a try.

Aug 14, 2010 at 8:55 am

Comment #9942

MAMARILLA2

hullo…*lets the black cat out the door and puts away the ladder and open umberella, cleans up the spilled salt and broken mirror, and rehangs the horseshoe*
On the whole single/double space thingy, I am still old school. But I know when to cut my losses and single space and text speak when I need too. I think the double looks neater in the long run and can make a report look like a lot more.

I sent my youngest off with Tink today to Kohl’s to see if she would have better luck than me. My girl doesn’t like to clothing shop with Mom. She thinks I don’t know what cool or good looking is. I was happy to see that more than one piece of clothing came home with her. I can’t wait to get with Tink and find out how it went.

This working evenings thing is hard on my social life,(not that I had a real active one anyway).. I hardly get to spend time with my ((((CIFs))))) any more.
pouncy pouncy…

Aug 14, 2010 at 1:05 am

Comment #9941

park rose

Well, I haven’t clicked Mark’s link, which means that anything I will say is redundant, especially as I probably have already said it at some point. Apparently when books and so on were printed up the spaces did get condensed, but when reading MS’s (manuscripts ), type-written ones and so on, it was easier to read with the double space after the fullstop.
Writing on the computer screen apparently looks a whole lot more like a printed book, I guess, which is why only a single space is necessary. I am just going on what a colleague told me.
Mark, your teacher was a poo. I typed up an assignment on a lightweight portable typewriter, manual, and used carbon paper so I had a copy (I don’t know why, I just liked carbon paper, I think). The teacher said, “rose, you could work a little more on presentation.”. But I had! It’s just that it hadn’t worked out. It was on Henry Lawson. An Australian writer, long gone.

Oh, there were black smeary marks over my high-tech attempt, which is why the sides of the teacher’s mouth turned with disdain. She was a nice teacher.

Aug 12, 2010 at 6:56 pm

Comment #9940

Mark

oi, the sentence spacing is actually kind of a debate. See this (which Troy posted below).

oh ok. Thanks Mark. huh! and I did not even know I was wrong all this time. Never knew you were suppose to put two spaces between two sentences. That would make sense because we have no space between letters in a word and then a space between two words to indicate end of the last word so two spaces between two sentences to indicate end of sentence. Except for that we put period to indicate end of sentence and that takes one space so the double spacing is kind of redundant. Just saying.
oh and lots of luck to Mishee.

Aug 12, 2010 at 5:05 pm

Comment #9938

Mark

oi, before computers/printers there were typewriters. I personally used a typewriter for a few years before my family got a computer with a printer. Typewriters still find some limited use in filling out pre-printed forms.

Single-space double-space talk is about how many times to hit the space bar after the end of a sentence. I say two spaces. Some people say one space. Those people are wrong.
Including, from the looks of it, this website.

type writer? what is that? ohhh! That thing they use in pseudo-artistic, pseudo-vintage pseudo-everything movies? What is this double space single space talk? I am lost like a boat in Pacific without sailor.

Aug 12, 2010 at 3:53 pm

Comment #9936

park rose

Troy is great and wonderful, of course, and so is Sarah, and the very brief glimpses I had of the kids as they scavenged for chips. The chip packet rustled, and they came running. Amazing.

Sorry for the delay. Kind of busy, and I thought the Q was a one post a day kind of thing lately Very tired, actually. Driving very badly. A little nervous. Not really fair, cos’ I’m actually not a bad driver, but you only get so many chances, I guess.

Mishee, hang in there! Off to bed for me. Feel extremely sluggish.

Aug 12, 2010 at 11:33 am

Comment #9935

Mark

Double space. That is all. …wait, no it’s not.

I remember typing at probably 8 years old? On a totally manual (nonelectric) typewriter, where the ! was not above the 1, you had to type a ‘ and then backspace and type a .. Then I remember typing on a blue electric smith-corona that my parents had. I also distinctly remember typing a longish report on England in 6th grade, and then being accused by my teacher that I couldn’t have possibly typed it myself, that my parents must’ve typed it for me. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I am positive that I was fucking pissed off at the accusation.

I formally learned to type in 1986. I refuse to believe computers and font kerning were exerting a widespread influence to change to single-spacing and Lesser Podunk just hadn’t heard about it yet.

I learned to type on a typewriter. The only computers in the school were in the computer lab.

Good luck Mish! I hope they get your head screwed on right!

Aug 12, 2010 at 5:23 am

Comment #9932

MAMARILLA2

hullo…*lights the everpresent dogend* been out plowing the back 40…(((CIFs))))

Spinach and cheese ravioli with a sage/brown butter sauce. 3 cheese tortalini with an italian sausage marinara. Slices of ripe tomato and fresh mozarella with fresh cut basil drizzled with garlic infused olive oil. Micro-greens salad tossed with a chiffonade of prosciutto and genoa salami and a garlic vinagrette. Fresh from the oven loaves of italian bread and whipped butter. Strawberry gellato . A jug of chilled chianti and a big pouncy pouncy smooch from me….

Aug 12, 2010 at 1:42 am

Comment #9931

Mishee™

Troy, apparently that “wikipedia” link isn’t available in my country, but since it was youtube, I just sang it and rickroll’d myself!

I only have 1 hour and 12 min left to be able to eat and drink, and I look like an eighties girl right now anyways with my short “gelled” (greasy cuz they won’t let me get my head wet) hair and my collection of hospital wrist bands (I have a few extra cause I checked out on Sunday A.M.A. and then Mister marched me right back here holding my ear)… checking out A.M.A. isn’t NEARLY as fun and dramatic and flamboyant as I thought it would be…

But a week in the hospital when you aren’t sick can make one a little batty, but other than that just getting myself prepared for surgery tomorrow… I’ll let you know if I come out deformed (is a possibility since they might take out part of my skull…) just think… then I will REALLY have a soft spot…

CB, yeah, my little bastards have given up trying to marry Conk & me up. They won the puppy battle; I think they’re satisfied with that. Anyhow, that’s great news and I hope you’ll be very happy together!

Troy! Yes I’m still in the deserts of Arizona. Yes I met, Ms. CB here, well, actually she found me on BlackPeopleMeet.com and stalked me, but I ran really slowly so I could be caught!

Describe her? Hmm, she’s just enough of a pain in the ass to deal with a pain in the ass like me…in other words, PERFECT FOR ME!!

Picking up marriage license Wednesday afternoon…would you believe $72.00?!
Used to be like $15.00 for such a mundane, yet socially encouraged thing. No wonder so many poor people don’t enter into wedlock and we have so many “illegitimate” births. Though I happen think that all births have been pretty much legitimized by birth certificates…and the existence of live babies.

Naw, you’re not a jerk. I haven’t been around so consistently, either. Real life and all. Amy and I were talking about it the other day, wondering just what it was that brought us all together at a time when we seemed to need an escape from real life. And how a lot of us went through big changes and are now back into real life now. It’s different, anyway.

And hell yeah, I double-space even if it doesn’t show. It’s the principle of the thing.

ORLY AΦ? So you’re double-spacing? I read the Wikipedia article after my boss hassled me about it, & suddenly felt like I was the only one still doing it. I still think it looks better, but don’t want to be an activist about it.

That sounds frustrating. I’ve been alright. Work is okay. My enthusiasm for it has suffered greatly from my working in vain for so long on that quantum info problem—I’ve totally given up on it now. And it’s hard to imagine now that I’ll ever be terribly excited about research again, but who knows. I’m starting to force myself to do some small research things, & they’re moderately interesting (if a bit mundane compared to the secrets of the universe). So it could be a lot worse.

Family life is great as usual. Stepson’s back in Sydney, at uni (not the one where I work) & loving his studies & extracurricular stuff. He just turned 18 last week. The little juanitas are happy with school & friends. Conk is in hot demand as the country’s up-&-coming kids’ book illustrator.

My guitar buddy has written a heap of cool tunes quite suddenly, found his groove or something, so we’re practicing them (with me on bass mostly) & talking about trying to get some gigs, but I’m sure it’s all talk. We’re too old.

Oh and how could I forget, I’ve been won over to single-spacing between sentences and after colons. Bet you didn’t see that coming!

"The thing that drives me bonkers at work is to open up the trash can drawer and see a cup half-full of water that was carefully placed into the trash can so it doesn't spill--in a trash can an arm's length away from the kitchen sink!

99% of the people in my office are college graduates, probably toward the top of their class. But some without enough common sense to pour the water in the sink before putting the cup into the trash can.